


What Kind of Memories Live (The Diamonds and Rust Remix)

by the_rck



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen
Genre: Ceremonies, Gen, Guilt, Literary References & Allusions, Politics, Scheming, Silver Queen's Dreaming of Sunshine Universe, Spies & Secret Agents, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-08-20 01:03:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20219221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: The first poem Shikako references is "Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep" by Mary Elizabeth Frye. The second is "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by John Donne. She mangles the latter by cherry picking lines and by changing some words. She doesn't have the luxury of looking up the exact phrasing. Both poems can be found online.The dates for Obun vary regionally due to differences in the original conversion to the Gregorian calendar, but it's usually some time in July or August. The music and dances for the festival also vary a lot from place to place, so I thought that the Uchiha had to have had their own that was different from what everyone else did.Seven years after death, either on the anniversary or during Obun, is one of the traditional times for a memorial for a specific dead relative. Obun seven years after the Uchiha Massacre would be too early for this story (and, I think, be entirely obscured by Hot Springs and its aftermath). This might happen during the Police arc or some time after that, just probably not as late as the following summer. I don't think either Shikako or Sasuke are thinking about the seven years after part of things as important.





	What Kind of Memories Live (The Diamonds and Rust Remix)

**Author's Note:**

> The first poem Shikako references is "Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep" by Mary Elizabeth Frye. The second is "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by John Donne. She mangles the latter by cherry picking lines and by changing some words. She doesn't have the luxury of looking up the exact phrasing. Both poems can be found online.
> 
> The dates for Obun vary regionally due to differences in the original conversion to the Gregorian calendar, but it's usually some time in July or August. The music and dances for the festival also vary a lot from place to place, so I thought that the Uchiha had to have had their own that was different from what everyone else did. 
> 
> Seven years after death, either on the anniversary or during Obun, is one of the traditional times for a memorial for a specific dead relative. Obun seven years after the Uchiha Massacre would be too early for this story (and, I think, be entirely obscured by Hot Springs and its aftermath). This might happen during the Police arc or some time after that, just probably not as late as the following summer. I don't think either Shikako or Sasuke are thinking about the seven years after part of things as important.

_The date wasn't the exact anniversary, and we were months from Obun, but we weren't doing this for the dead._

_I assume that I had a funeral, Before, but I wasn't there for it. My soul never went back to visit. No All Hallow's Eve or Day of the Dead or Obun. The only Uchiha who would be present-- physically or spiritually-- was Sasuke._

_Sasuke and I put up paper over every kamidana in the compound. Later, we'd take down the paper over the shrine in his house. The rest would remain covered until the houses were occupied again._

_And they would be. I was promising, too._

Tsunade had told us to see what we could do about obstructing Cloud's access to Moss's resources. Gaining access ourselves would be ideal but wasn't a requirement for mission success.

Sakaguchi Bassui, Daimyo of Moss, was stubbornly determined to throw all of his nation's resources into supporting Cloud. His granddaughter and current heir, Midori, gave every indication of preferring Konoha, but she also had... 

Tsunade's briefing had said 'complicated emotional responses to violence.' 

Looking at the history of the Sakaguchi family, I thought that translated to 'she doesn't want to be her father.' He'd been the second son, fourth out of Bassui's (then) five direct heirs. He'd hired assassins to deal with the first three.

Midori-hime wasn't going to go to war with her grandfather. She also wasn't going to react well if anyone assassinated him. Most of her support as heir-presumptive came from his allies and from factions that wanted stability and continuity in the government.

If we had to kill the Daimyo, framing Cloud would be ideal, but it would also require that Midori-hime and everyone else believe that Cloud wanted a regime change that would benefit Konoha. Even if we could manage a frame or even make it look natural, the Daimyo's death could lead to civil war because the Daimyo had remarried after his sons died. He had two children under the age of five and both potentially in play as figureheads for their mother's family. 

Lady Nyoko's opinions on international alliances were unknown, but her father and brothers traded heavily with cities in Lightning Country.

Murder was murder was murder, and none of us were squeamish, but I think everyone was happier when Red Team discussed options after we got to Moss and I pointed out that all Lady Nyoko's family needed was a child they could pass off as either Hajime or Rumiko. Killing those two wouldn't guarantee Midori-hime as Daimyo.

I also gave it at least a 60% chance that, if those two kids and their father suddenly died, Lady Nyoko and Midori-hime would put aside petty things like which hidden village had better souvenirs and come after the perpetrators with any weapons they could find.

That was even before looking at how other Daimyo would react.

Our odds of being able to blame Cloud-- or anyone else-- were pretty abysmal unless we found something that didn't look like ninja intervention, but this wasn't a mission to be solved by a tornado or a tsunami or even generous application of explosives. We'd gone over the situation from six different angles before Hawk-taicho said the words that sparked a potentially workable idea.

I snickered then made a warding gesture as if I was trying to deflect the evil eye. "Superstitious," I said. "He spends half his time praying at his family shrine." I paused for dramatic effect. "Ghosts."

Everyone's attention sharpened. None of them asked, but I recognized the silence as expectant.

_A Christmas Carol_ wouldn't map point for point onto this situation or, really, to any situation in this world, but I could make it work. "Ghosts," I repeated. "He's got a lot of dead." I deliberately didn't look at Hawk-taicho. "If they tell him they need something, if we remind him of how it was and warn him about what might be-- He's not spending all that time because he's remembering happier times."

I was really glad I wouldn't have to explain this one to Kakashi-sensei. He'd wonder how I knew that sort of grief.

"If we push him right, he'll abdicate in favor of Midori-hime." I took a deep breath and told them a story about about ghosts-- past, present, and future-- warning a man that his focus on wealth and power had cost him love and happiness and gained him nothing but lonely and unmourned death.

_Sasuke didn't remember a lot of definite things about Uchiha customs. He'd never learned their Bon Odori or the music that went with it. He remembered offering rice. He remembered incense. He remembered fire dancing._

_I insisted on flowers everywhere and on dancing on the water so that we wouldn't burn down the district. I offered lyrics translated from my previous life. Just the parts that worked-- Keeping "I am not there; I did not die" would have been... insensitive. And really weird for a culture that didn't believe in redemption leading to bodily resurrection. Sasuke needed everything before that, the wind and the sun and the birds._

_"Do not stand by my grave and weep / I am not there; I do not sleep. / I am a thousand winds that blow..."_

_Sasuke needed to remember that the world went on and that even the unremembered dead were part of it._

_Also, I couldn't recall anything better._

_We both bowed three times as we offered incense at Sasuke's household shrine and again in front of the Uchiha haka. I stood six steps behind Sasuke because, while he was my brother, I'd never met his parents or his cousins or any of them. I didn't remember them the way he did. I'd only seen them die over and over and over._

The hardest part was finding the first domino. No one outside of Moss had bothered to track Sakaguchi Bassui when he was a fourth son who spent his days studying pottery and glazes. No one had noticed him until Corinden fever swept through Moss’s capital and left him as his mother’s only heir. 

The intervening thirty years had given the rest of the world time to catch up, but the death toll from the epidemic was high enough that everyone’s records on Moss from that era were cheesecloth rather than canvas. There weren't records about Bassui's early friendships or romances or rivalries. We didn't know the name of his first dog or the color of the first pot his teacher considered 'good enough.'

At any rate, I knew what we could use on the Daimyo of Moss after he spoke to the first of the four ghosts, his Marley, but Marley... Marley had to be personal and convincing, someone the target knew and understood and was absolutely certain was dead.

Marley and Scrooge were the same person except that Marley died and was damned while Scrooge had a chance to repent and atone. Marley's ghost really was Marley, so he hadn't had to lie or to deceive Scrooge.

I really wished that we could use an earthquake.

The Ghosts of Past, Present, and Future were obviously kami instead of ghosts. They only had to be convincingly other and disorienting. I wasn't thrilled about doing cold reading for emotionally affecting illusions, but they were going to be a lot easier.

I could have made a Marley for Danzo without having to get creative. I could have pulled memories from Before to give Danzo faces for his crimes and for the cost of them. I could definitely have assured Danzo that his name, his every supposed success in service to Konoha, would be cursed as a source of hidden rot. Danzo's work made branches that looked sound snap under the weight of Konoha's shinobi.

Of course, Danzo would assume genjutsu and treason. There was a reason that _A Christmas Carol_ was low on my list of Ways to Take Out Danzo. It was more feasible than, say, pushing him into Mount Doom given that Mount Doom wasn't-- so far as I knew-- anywhere in our current universe. It was also more feasible than arranging to have him trampled by wildebeests. 

Izanagi was really inconvenient.

But the Daimyo of Moss didn't have the Sharingan. Well, he _probably_ didn't. Assuming 100% certainty tended to bite people when they could least afford to bleed. I just couldn't imagine any Hidden Village wasting a resource like an Uchiha eyeball on a daimyo.

Going back to Marley. Marley had mattered because his sins and Scrooge's had been the same and because they'd worked together and known each other. I wasn't capable of cold-reading well enough to fake that for the Daimyo.

Red Team was a terrible match for this mission. It really needed a Yaminaka.

_"No man is an island," I murmured as Sasuke prayed. "Every man's death diminishes me. Send not to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee." I knew I wasn't remembering the poem right, but it fit._

_I'd let them die once because they hadn't been real the way that Mom and Dad and Shika were, because I was terrified. I'd never know who I could have been-- who Sasuke could have been-- if I hadn't failed to act._

_I'd put a lot of effort into arranging the flowers and into the brushwork on the black bordered cards for each Uchiha who'd died that night. I thought that gave equal weight to each life._

"I think it will have to be Midori-hime's father," I told Towa and Hawk-taicho. "My ghost, I mean." I'd spent hours looking over our information about the Daimyo's past. I'd have preferred someone from farther back in time, but nobody else fit.

Komachi was keeping watch. Hawk-taicho would brief her after I relieved her.

"That's not an ancestor," Hawk-taicho responded. He didn't sound as if he expected that to be a barrier, just as if he expected me to tell him why it would work.

"We have more solid intelligence on his sons than we do on his parents or grandparents or great-grandparents." I shrugged. "I thought about the wife, but-- Married couples have more tells in terms of body language and endearments or insults and-- We can't fake that part."

"Parents and children have that, too," Towa said.

I wobbled a hand back and forth to indicate that I sort of agreed and sort of didn't. "Children change over the years." I didn't think that either the Daimyo or Midori-hime felt like they'd known Usaku after he sent assassins after his nephews and brother. "That'll give us space for... artistic license." 

Hawk-taicho nodded. His shoulders had tightened as if he'd heard the parts I didn't say out loud.

When we got home, I'd have to help Sasuke burn incense for his own lost family. Brother killing brother might not give Hawk-taicho nightmares, but thoughts about it definitely didn't help Sasuke sleep.

"Where'd he hire the assassins?" Towa asked.

I stared at him for a few seconds because he should have remembered. "Missing nin," I said flatly, "almost certainly out of Mist but no names."

None of us said anything for a few seconds because attributing inconvenient things to unidentified missing nin from Mist was a longstanding mechanism for plausible deniability. It didn't work nearly as well given Mist's new administration, so people were mostly blaming Sound now.

And, sometimes, it actually had been missing nin from Mist who were responsible. Very occasionally.

"It would have been part of the briefing," Towa said with hope in his voice. "If we had, I mean."

I said, "It's not pertinent." I left the fact that Towa ought to know better than to speculate unsaid. I doubted he really thought that we would have refused the job. 

If we'd been asked to take it. Which we hadn't.

Who had actually done the killing only mattered now if we could use it as leverage or if someone else could.

Which might have been why the Daimyo of Moss was so adamantly pro-Cloud. It would explain a lot, so maybe it was pertinent. Anything that was currently biting Red Team in the ass was pertinent by my standards.

Towa's shoulders slumped a little. He'd heard what I hadn't said.

"So," I went on, "we need 'Usaku' to play on his father's guilt. Maybe Usaku wanted Midori-hime to come home." She'd been fifteen and betrothed to the oldest son of the Daimyo of Wind. She hadn't even been in Moss at the time which might well be the only reason she'd survived. "Maybe he thought that ambition was the only thing that would make him a good son. Maybe--" I shrugged. "I'm still working out the details."

Midori-hime was now 22 and married to the grandson of one of her grandfather's allies. If Wind had subsidized Usaku's plans in hopes of acquiring Moss, they should have waited until after the wedding. 

Konoha admitted to taking the job of extracting the heir-presumptive of Moss from Wind Country's court before the suddenly urgent ceremony could take place. The team led by Maito Gai had found her trying to climb a garden wall to manage her own escape. She and Gai-sensei had bonded.

"Midori-hime blames her grandfather," Hawk-taicho said abruptly.

I turned to look at him. I wasn't sure Hawk-taicho was good at understanding people's motivations. I considered the matter for a moment then nodded because Hawk-taicho had been watching Midori as we tried to figure out whether or not we could push her into a coup.

"That really should have been part of the mission briefing." Now Towa sounded aggrieved. "That's a stupid thing for us not to know." He waved a hand. "Not like the other thing."

He wasn't wrong, so Hawk-taicho and I both shrugged.

"So we make him accept that blame?" Hawk-taicho didn't sound like he thought it would work, not so many years later.

Sasuke didn't know the ways a person might wrap themselves around that sort of guilt to accept its poison while telling the world they'd done exactly what they meant to. I could have told him, but I didn't want Sasuke to know.

I tilted my head to one side. "It is the sort of thing that makes people abdicate to walk from holy site to holy site or to go sit on a rock, meditating about the sound of one hand clapping." I didn't think that abdication was going to be enough. We were going to have to push him to withdraw from political life entirely.

_Getting photographs would have required a lot more time than calligraphy had, and some of Sasuke's relatives-- I hadn't found funeral appropriate images for everyone when Dad and I looked at the records. There wouldn't have been a way to make them all look right together. I could balance the kanji of the names from card to card._

_If the time I took was penance, no one but I was going know._


End file.
